Thursday, April 10, 2008

Hard Times

There's a great article in Bitch magazine, Hard Times by Sarah Seltzer, that addresses the disparity of books by women and reviews by women vs. books and reviews by men in the NYT Book Review. She also lists some misogynist comments by reviews to recent feminist books - the sort of knee-jerk reactions to everyday feminism that we'd like to think the Times would be above. She quotes Toni Bentley’s review of Katha Pollitt’s Learning to Drive:

“An enraged, educated woman (Vagina dentata intellectualis)…is a force to be reckoned with, a kind of intellectual Mike Tyson—though, apparently, she is still not as likely to be seduced into bed as the bombshell bimbo, one reason she’s so irate.”

Vagina dentata intellectualis! Excuse me while I change the name of my blog!

I read a lot of book reviews, and I listen to a fairly ridiculous amount of short stories and fiction on my 'pod, and let me tell you - the number one complaint, the perhaps single complaint I have is that there are not enough women writers being recognized. I don't know why people think "feminism" is such a dirty word - they love to be the first to act like a feminist is some crazy, hair-covered woman likely to fly off the handle. At its most basic, it's just about equality. Like most feminists, Seltzer is just asking for a level playing field.